This post is a little bit different. It’s not so much about a scone but a scone recipe. The Major A A Gordon Society may sound like somewhere you might go for an upmarket afternoon tea but it’s not. Or if it was it would be in Antwerp and we are definitely not there. Let us explain!
Obviously attentive readers will remember mention of the Major A A Gordon Society in the Wee Timorous Beastie post back in June. Initially the Society got in touch because they had read one of our posts from 2015 about the Scotch Tea House in Nice on the Côte d’Azure. They wanted to know if it was the same “Scottish Teahouse” Major Gordon had visited back in 1939. So far we have been unable to provide a definitive answer but are pretty sure that it is.
So in a way, our’s and Major Gordon’ s paths have crossed. When we were there the tearoom looked very Victorian and we speculated that it was there because Queen Victoria spent a few months every year in Nice and loved everything “Scottish’`. And it looked as if it had not changed in the last one hundred years. Who knows, we may have even sat at the same table as Queen Victoria or Major Gordon?
Major Gordon was from Bridge of Allan here in Scotland but is largely unknown here. In Belgium, however, it is a different story. He is a celebrated war hero because of his courageous actions during the Siege of Antwerp in 1914, Suffice to say, serendipity and scones seem to have coalesced in a way that means that Pat and I now do research on the Society’s behalf here in Scotland.
Recipes
As part of the exchange of correspondence they sent us pictures of the cookbook Major Gordon wrote around 120 years ago. They thought we would be interested in the scone recipe.
Turns out Major Gordon was a bit of a sconey … there were several recipes
Innovating
Anyway, one day Pat decided to try and bring one of the recipes to life. 
There were problems however, we didn’t have any “buttermilk”. We didn’t even know what it was! When we looked it up it seemed to come in powdered form. Pat improvised with some self-raising flour and a pinch of sugar. Suffice to say the results, with homemade jam and whipped cream, were rather good. We have now discovered that buttermilk can be made simply by adding vinegar to milk to make it curdle. Think we’ll leave that for the time being!
You just never know
We sent the pictures off to Belgium and within days they appeared in the November Issue of the Society’s newsletter. They have also made Pat and I and my sister, who has been researching the Scotch Tearoom in Nice, honorary members. You see you just never know where the simple act of eating a scone will lead. We are, of course delighted and delighted to continue helping the Society in any way we can.
Best laid plans
Back in June in the post from the Timorous Beastie Cafe we referred to the poem “To A Mouse” by Robert Burns. The timorous beastie was a mouse and Burns had just destroyed its nest with his plough. It made him reflect on life and its unpredictability. “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley.” He apologises to the mouse and for the general tyranny of man. With everything going on in the world and now the imbecilic riots in Dublin last night you might think that man should have progressed a wee bit since Burns’s day. It would appear not! Thank goodness for scones!
Delightfully informative as always!Relieved to know you have discovered buttermilk!
Gosh Carrington, we are beginning to think we have been living in some sort of parallel universe … everyone else seems to be very familiar with buttermilk!
Well now,that’s interesting; a man of his grade taking the time to write down scone recipes. He was probably fed up of the crepes and socca offered to him when he was in Nice and was glad to get a scone in the Scotch Tea House.
Actually Kath, it was his sister-in-law Dolly that was living in Nice and she had arranged to meet him there.
Bill I’m ashamed of you having spent so long in Northern Ireland and never came across buttermilk. The milkman used to deliver it in the fifties when I was a boy. Could no stand the stuff myself!
All I can say Colin, is that we have led very sheltered lives. We went round to the pub last night and one of our friends who had read the post had gone out and bought us a carton of buttermilk! Now we have to decide what to do with it.
Incredible co-incidences. You couldn’t write the script – except you just did! Very interesting and enjoyable post.
Re buttermilk. While trying to recreate the Royal Scone recipe you shared some time ago I did find buttermilk locally. Sadly my efforts were nowhere near as good as Pat’s scones.
We’ve since discovered buttermilk in a number of places but never think we could use it all unless we made a huge batch of scones … and then what we do?
Not a lot I can add to this one, except to say the scones turned out not to bad.